


Touch

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Missing Hogwarts Moments [28]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: Harry never thought of touch having memory.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Series: Missing Hogwarts Moments [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1407286
Comments: 11
Kudos: 133





	Touch

Harry had never thought of touch as having memory. Of skin remembering, the goosebumps rising in time with imagined fantasy or distant recall, the phantom of warm breath skimming against his neck, the ghost of warm weight against him, pressing against his muscles, anchoring to him.

In the dark, small sanctuary of his cupboard, he remembered, he had sucked his thumb, clutched his arm, pinning it to his own side, wrapping his own arms around him. Now, with the rain drumming against canvas and Hermione whimpering and sniffing while she thought him asleep, he lifted his fingers to his lips, traced against them as he remembered that old habit, and, instinctively, found his other arm reaching around to grasp his shoulder, across his chest.

It was something, but it was not enough. It didn’t help or soothe like it had done before, and for a moment he supposed it was because he was an adult now, and it was childish to think it would, silly to think that anything or anyone, including himself, could shelter him.

Because he knew now, that feeling that he had likened to a monster, because it was so unexpected and bizarre. He knew that feeling of touch, of wanting it, of having it, of remembering it as his favourite and most hated ghost, haunting him with all the entangled and complicated pain and joy it had brought.

Hermione was still trying to cry quietly at the entrance to the tent, looking out into the driving rain, though he could only just see her from his bunk. He watched her shoulders shaking, heard the occasional choked splutter. He wondered why she didn’t stop, why she kept returning to crying when it clearly didn’t make her feel any better. He’d never much understood crying at all.

His eyes flicked instead to the gas lamp on the low table; it glowed a dusky yellow, and he stared into the centre of it, until everything around it seemed to darken and the sound of the rain blurred and there was nothing but the warm light and the press of his slightly trembling arm against his chest.

He remembered that first kiss, when he had immersed himself in her touch as one would immerse into a warm bath, when he had forgotten to think of the monster in his chest as a monster at all, forgotten its strange and frightening nature, and simply kissed her. He remembered too, how he had lurched with tingling excitement as she pulled a maggot out of his hair, nearly a year prior, and then, in the warmth of the summer sun that glowed like the lamp on the table, how she had unwittingly ignited that tingling excitement again with the simplest of touches.

On his chest, goosebumps rose as he remembered her fingers nimbly undoing his shirt buttons, her soft fingertips brushing against the skin she revealed there, her short, rounded nails making the lightest of scratches, leaving little trails of white. His neck almost ached as he remembered how closely they had embraced, hidden away in secluded corners of the school and grounds, the whispered sigh of his own name breezing just below his ear, warm and caressing. He pressed his arm tighter against his chest, so that he might mimick the way she had often leaned herself lazily against or, when Ron was not around, across him, entirely unaware that he was wondering whether she was actually secretly enchanting him, to make him feel so warm and relaxed and comfortable like this, to make everything but her simply vanish.

He almost wished that she hadn’t, so that he wouldn’t be lying here, cold and hungry and alone, craving her touch, so that he might taste that happiness again.


End file.
